BY PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH LITERATURE IN THE UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS AND CLARISSA RINAKER ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH LITERATURE IN THE UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS New York THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 1926 All rights reserved PREFACE The present compilation arose out of an experience of a dozen years with an introductory course in literature at the University of Illinois. There is no intention here of raising the question as to the relative merit of the chronological study and the study of typical forms for the initiation of college classes in an appreciation of poetic art. But it is evident that for those who prefer the latter method there ought to be available a text arranged with a view to their special needs and comparable in scope with the existing chronological compilations. At the time this book was planned nothing of the kind was anywhere in sight. During its production two books appeared which at least bear evidence that the need here referred to is widely felt. It is the belief of the editors, however, that in this volume the material is classified in a more thoroughgoing fashion than in the others and fuller recognition is given to all the important forms and aspects of English poetry with the exception of the dramatic. The task which the editors set themselves of classifying the poems consistently was, it may be assumed, not without its difficulties and they are not so rash as to believe that they were always successful. In poetry, as in all human productions, formal boundaries are fluid, and critical terms cannot be applied with mathematical certainty. It is not often that we have categories as precisely definable as the sonnet. In the genus lyric are included a number of species, some of which are distinguished by formal structure, some by dominant mood (elegy), and some by characteristics of substance and style (ode). But it is not always easy to say when a lyric of mournful tone becomes palpably elegiac, or precisely what degree of elaborateness and elevation is necessary to make an ode. Moreover, there are many poems which may with equal propriety be treated in several categories. The Rape of the Lock is of as much interest for a study of satire as of narrative poetry, and the poems included in the section of Light Verse may easily be distributed among the other categories. In making each division, however, the editors felt that there was something distinctive to be brought out in the treatment and style of a certain group of poems. The condensed description of each type which precedes the selections calls attention to the specific problem of classification which is there involved. There will probably be in each division enough questionable examples to give rise to profitable discussion. In selecting poems to represent the various types, the editors have in the main observed the orthodox canon. A pedagogical volume of this kind is not the place to display unusual tastes. Perhaps they have not avoided an indication of certain preferences by giving somewhat more than is customary from poets like Landor and Matthew Arnold, but they have never done it at the sacrifice of indispensable material from other writers. The exclusion of prose has made room for a greater body of verse than is found in similar compilations, and the plan of the book has permitted the use of specimens of American literature alongside of British, and of contemporary poems alongside of classical models. Some of the longer compositions are given complete, but the editors have made no fetish of completeness. Aside from the disproportion which results when a book which aims to represent the whole range of English poetry prints too many long poems in their entirety, there is a decided disadvantage in |